Collapse: UMass rallies from 22 down to end Syracuse's season

Arinze Onuaku, his 258-pound body slumped onto a small wooden stool, shook his head and uttered the words of disbelief.
"It's just frustrating,'' Onuaku said. "Very frustrating.''
In a stunning but yet somehow fitting end to the 2007-08 season, the Syracuse Orange blew a 22-point second-half lead and lost to Massachusetts, 81-77, in the NIT quarterfinals on Tuesday night at the Carrier Dome.

And so the Syracuse locker room quietly emptied out for the final time in this roller-coaster ride of a season after one more gut-dropping nosedive.
Syracuse, which had led 54-32 with 14 minutes and 30 seconds remaining, had somehow found a way to end its season with a more shocking loss than the evaporation of an 11-point in the final 3:30 of the March 1 loss to Pittsburgh. That 82-77 come-from-ahead loss to Pitt had eventually doomed the Orange to a second straight year out of the NCAA Tournament.
"This is worse,'' Syracuse freshman Donte Greene said when asked to compare Tuesday's collapse to the loss to Pitt. "I think we were up more in this game. And no offense to UMass, but they're not as talented as Pittsburgh.''
Not as talented, but more than capable of running down a Syracuse team that missed too many free throws, missed too many layups and committed too many bone-headed mistakes.
On Tuesday, even after cutting Syracuse's 22-point lead down to seven points, UMass still had to out-score the Orange 12-to-1 over the game's last 3 minutes and 10 seconds to pull off the miracle comeback.
"I was very proud of our kids,'' UMass coach Travis Ford said. "An incredible, incredible comeback. To be able to beat a team like Syracuse twice in this building. Our kids were talking about the Garden (and) the Final Four of the NIT, I said you need to embrace what you've done here.''
What UMass did was become the first team to beat Syracuse at the Carrier Dome twice in the same season. The only other team to beat Syracuse on its homecourt twice in the same season was Penn State back in the 1922-23 season.
"Very disappointed. Very disappointed,'' Greene said. "I was looking to go back to NY and end on a good note. It's been a tough season for us.''
Onuaku led Syracuse with 20 points, while Greene added 18. However, Onuaku was just 9-for-20 from the field and Greene went 6-for-14.
Trailing by eight with 12 minutes to go, Ford reminded his players that they had rallied from 12 points down in the final eight minutes against Akron in Saturday's second round.
"We've got an eternity,'' Ford told his team. "This is going to be easy from this point. They got a chuckle out it.''
Even before Dante Milligan's dunk put UMass ahead 78-77 with 28 seconds left and Ricky Harris closed out the scoring with two free throws with 4 ticks on the clock, the comeback seemed a fait accompli.
"I was looking around and I saw the crowd was getting upset and we were still down two points,'' UMass forward Etienne Brower, who scored 19 points on 5-for-10 3-point shooting, said. "I said 'This is unreal'.''
Syracuse led 43-24 at halftime, but allowed UMass to score 57 second-half points. The Minutemen were 2-for-15 from 3-point range in the first half, but hit nine out of 16 in the second half.
"In the second half, we broke down defensively and gave them some wide open threes and they're going to make them,'' Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim said. "The first half, we didn't. They shot 2-for-15 because we were there.''
UMass set a frenetic pace throughout the game, but especially in the second half. The Minutemen pushed the ball at every opportunity; even after Syracuse's made baskets.
Boeheim said the Orange were fine as long as they continued to make shots. However, Boeheim counted as many as 20 missed layups.
Onuaku, who made 64 percent of his shots this season, missed 11 out of 20 shots on Tuesday.
"They're going to make some threes, they're going to get some turnovers and they're going to get some openings because they push it so well,'' Boeheim said. "And we're going to wear down a little bit, but you've got to make your layups and we didn't do that.''
Syracuse's season could be summed up in its last five possessions. The Orange committed two turnovers, went 1-for-4 at the free throw line and had a driving shot blocked.
"This hurts,'' Syracuse sophomore Paul Harris said. "Even though it's the NIT, you want to win every game. This was definitely a tough loss.''
A tough loss to end a tough season.